On January 19, 2023, the final presentation was held for the @ve project, which started in September 2022. The chatbot runs on the website www.ave-bot.ch and on Telegram. Like ChatGPT, it is based on GPT-3 from OpenAI (@ve is not GPT-3.5, but GPT-3.0). The project was initiated by Prof. Dr. Oliver Bendel, who wants to devote more time to dead, extinct, and endangered languages. @ve was developed by Karim N’diaye, who studied business informatics at the Hochschule für Wirtschaft FHNW. You can talk to her in Latin, i.e. in a dead language that thus comes alive in a way, and ask her questions about grammar. It was tested by a relevant expert. One benefit, according to Karim N’diaye, is that you can communicate in Latin around the clock, thinking about what and how to write. One danger, he says, is that there are repeated errors in the answers. For example, sometimes the word order is not correct. In addition, it is possible that the meaning is twisted. This can happen with a human teacher, and the learner should always be alert and look for errors. Without a doubt, @ve is a tool that can be profitably integrated into Latin classes. There, students can report what they have experienced with it at home, and they can have a chat with it on the spot, alone or in a group, accompanied by the teacher. A follow-up project on an endangered language has already been announced (Illustration: Karim N’diaye/Unsplash).
BY OLIVER BENDEL
